RC#24: The Hunt for Grey September (2)

published in Eastern Economist #405, November 5, 2001

It all started in late September, when the Minister of Ecology, Serhiy Kurykin, announced that he was turning down the use of an official car. His reason? Because pollution had become so bad in Kyiv. But he didn’t offer any statistics to back up his claim. And the data that was finally rustled up [see RC#21] left a lot to be desired.

            Typically, getting some standard information like pollution levels in a major city is anything but straightforward in the post-soviet bloc. Western papers started publishing pollution indexes back in the 60’s. In Ukraine, it seems to be regarded as a security risk to make this kind of information available.

            My suspicions are twofold: that they don’t really have any reliable statistics to this day and that they just want to make a little spare cash on what data they do have. Nevertheless, I promised an update on the hunt for Grey September, so here it is.

            I tracked down someone, a moonlighting reporter called Anastasia, who had a contact in the Ecology Ministry. But she came down with a bad case of the flu and was incommunicado for a week. College dorms in Ukraine have one phone line for a couple of hundred out-of-town students. And the ladies manning the lobbies don’t consider taking messages part of their job description.

            I figured as long as Anastasia didn’t come down with amnesia, I’d be OK.

            Meanwhile, I decided to try a few other leads. I called the All-Ukrainian Environmental League. They promised to look for some materials, but I never heard back.

            I called USAID, which has an environmental program, but the man authorized to talk about it was out of the office. I left a message for him to call back. He didn’t, but I managed to get through to him the following day.

            “The numbers are real, as far as I can tell,” he told me. “The number of vehicles has definitely increased, for starters. They aren’t new cars, either, and older vehicles tend to give off more exhaust.”

            “I thought most of the older soviet cars have diesel engines. Aren’t they supposed to pollute less?”

            “Theoretically yes,” he said, “but if the car isn’t new and the engine isn’t properly adjusted or tuned the right way, a diesel engine can pollute even more than a gasoline one.”

            In other words, he seemed pretty confident that the sudden surge in pollution in 2000 was a major influx of diesel-driven, badly maintained used cars. I had my doubts, but I thanked him politely and waited for Anastasia to call.

            Finally, she managed to recover and give me the name and number of the contact person at the Ecology Ministry. I immediately called them and asked for Yevhen Zynovievych. Things are never so simple in Ukraine, however. I asked him to comment on the table we had been given by DerzhKomStat, the state statistics committee.

            “Oh, I can’t answer that,” said Mr. Zynovievych. “You should call the Department of Hydro Meteorology. Talk to Viacheslav Lepynskiy. He’s your man.”

            I called Mr. Lepynskiy.

            “He’s at a meeting,” said the engineer who answered the phone. “And tomorrow he’s off on a business trip. I’m afraid you won’t be able to reach Mr. Lepynskiy.”

            She was nice enough, however, to give me the number of the director of the Central Geophysical Observatory, Oleksandr Kosovets.

            I got through to Mr. Kosovets the next day. I explained to him what the problem was. Apparently, the Center measures the overall pollution level in Kyiv. But given that about 80% of waste is generated by fuel exhaust from vehicles, he said he could comment on that. So I gave him the numbers:

Exhaust from vehicular traffic, ’000 t

                 1997            1998            1999            2000

Kyiv             55.1            54.7           52.3            137.8

Ukraine    1,433.0        1,884.5       1,747.0         1,949.2

Source: DerzhKomStat

            He thought about it a bit and said, “The numbers for 1997-99 look OK. They’re pretty realistic. But 2000 seems out of line, for sure.”

            “So what do you think is going on?” I asked.

            “Well, of course the number of cars is growing. But not to an extent that would increase pollution levels that much. Besides,” he said, “the quality of gasoline has improved. I’m afraid I can’t explain the figure you have for 2000.”

            Moreover, Mr. Kosovets said, pollution levels measured by his Center have been quite stable over the past few years. “There haven’t been any huge increases that we’ve seen.”

            “Can you provide the figures for pollution levels in Kyiv?” I asked him.

            “Well, ye-e-s,” he said, “I can. But it’s not free of charge.”

            “How much?”

            “A small report will cost three figures.” About a month’s wages.

            I thanked him politely and said I would think about it. At least I have his number.

            While all this was going on, some interesting developments took place with the Ecology Minister himself. On Oct. 18, Mr. Kurykin asked to be relieved of his duties as a VR deputy. Theoretically, he really shouldn’t have remained in his seat all along, as a minister. [The Ukrainian system is not strictly parliamentary. The majority party does not form the government.] In any case, the Verkhovna Rada responded with alacrity, booting him out on a vote of 317 in favor.

            Could it be that Mr. Kurykin has been conscience-struck by the questionable numbers his office provides? Maybe he also wants to know whether a lot of mothballed dirt monsters suddenly hit the roads of the capital in 2000. With any luck, he might even develop some proper data-gathering methods and launch a proper – and free – pollution index. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.